


Insert, Delete.

by loveinanotherdimension



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Childhood, M/M, Memory Loss, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinanotherdimension/pseuds/loveinanotherdimension
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A secret operation -- 10 children, 10 super-soldier microchips, and no way to remove them. When they are found out, the government orders the operation to be shut down, and the children are spread out across the world, placed in homes with specially trained foster parents. </p><p>Eren Jaeger lives in Germany with his parents, goes to a school down the road, and has a best friend who hates dirty things, such as worms in Eren's hands.</p><p>But what will happen to his peaceful life when a terrorist attack activates Eren?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insert, Delete.

**CREATE NEW…**

 

A military of 2020 was experimenting with something new. A device, a tiny chip; which would be able to harness the true capacity of the human brain.

This chip would be able to turn anyone into a super-soldier. At any inclination of a massive threat, or a massive danger, it would switch on, and would be able to arrest the thoughts and actions of the brain, turning all of its focus on maximising the usage of its muscles to apprehend any enemies present. This, theoretically, would work on anyone, even if they were untrained, even if they were disabled –

– even if they were children.

Ten children, descendants of now-deceased military personnel, were herded into a sterile white room and told to lie down on thick metal slabs. They were sedated, then given general anaesthetic to numb them through and through.

When they woke up, they were changed for life.

The ten children, however, were never given a trail run. When the government agencies found out about this secret operation, they ordered the military to shut it down. For what if this technology fell into enemy hands? Surely the result would be disastrous.

What they did not realise when they inserted the chips was this: the chips could not be removed. It was like sugar in a cake – once added in, it was difficult to take out. To attempt such a thing would be to damage the children’s brains to a point where it could stunt their growth, be it mental or physical. As such, they decided to leave it in, and scatter the children all over the world. They were to be placed in special foster homes that would be constantly under watch. No danger was to make itself known to these children, and the plan was to wait until they were twenty-five, their brains fully formed by then, to remove the small piece of metal that was embedded in their heads.

And just like that, at the tender age of four, Eren Jaeger was shipped off to Germany.

 

**EXPORT…**

* * *

 Eren was twelve when he met Levi Ackerman.

They were neighbours living on the same street, Eren in a yellow home with a sunny tiled roof, and Levi in a whitewashed home with a grey slate roof.

They were also schoolmates in the same secondary school. Theirs was a gymnasium, of course, and Levi was the top student of his grade.

Eren, however…

“Jaeger!” Levi shouted, and smacked Eren on the underside of his head. “Why in the world are you trying to eat a _worm_?”

“Jean said that it would make me better in Biology,” Eren sulked, massaging his sore head. “Why did you hit me?”

“You were going to eat a worm!” Levi said exasperatedly, running a hand through his hair in frustration as he stared down at the innocent-looking Eren still grasping the earthworm in one of his muddy hands. “Put it down, you’re all gross now.”

Eren reluctantly let go of the worm, mouthing ‘ _goodbye_ ’ at it. He wiped his hands down on his pants, making Levi cringe noticeably, and grinned widely up at the eighth grader. Levi shook his head in disdain and started walking back to Eren’s house, the plucky boy bounding up the street after him. Levi could hear Eren humming a children’s song, and couldn’t help but smile (but only _very_ slightly, Levi would be hasty to point out) at the lightness in his voice.

Free from all the threatening weights of the world, Eren was like a bird, soaring through clouds and skies without boundaries and without any concerns.

Levi felt like he himself was caged, caged in by the expectations of his teachers, his father, his mother. He could be the top student in Germany, but as far as his parents were concerned, he would still not be good enough.

Sometimes, he wished that he could be Eren. He wished that he could let go of all of his troubles and instead, focus on enjoying this one life that he had.

But he could never do that. He could never be Eren.

“Eren! What happened to your hands!” Grisha Jaeger called out from the front door, looking at his son in confusion.

Levi turned around and stopped, waiting for Eren to catch up before walking in with him. Eren merely flashed a cheeky smile at his father before attacking him, dirtying his t-shirt with his hands and laughing into his chest. Grisha Jaeger laughed with him, then beckoned for Levi to go into the house.

“Mrs Jaeger has pretzels for you two, and since you’re clean, Levi, you get to pick which one you want first.” Grisha said, ignoring Eren’s cries. Levi nodded politely to him before stepping into the house, leaving Eren to engage in a tickle fight with his father.

 _Eren seems to have everything in the world going right for him_ , Levi thought, _even if he isn’t all that bright in the head_.

Glancing back at the father and son, Levi could not help but wish that he possessed that sort of real familial bond with his father too.

Then again, Levi didn’t know everything about Eren – maybe there was something in his life that haunted him too, that kept him awake at night too.

Biting into his pretzel, Levi hoped as strongly as he could that there was nothing.

* * *

 It all went down a few years later, when Eren was fifteen. They were sitting in their school hall, and were watching the basketball team present an award to the principal, when –

An explosion rang in Levi’s ears, splinters of wood near his class flying out from the pillar beside them. He stared in shock and horror, eyes widening when he saw a black armoured figure crash through the hall’s windows and rush towards him. He saw a gun flash in the air, and his mind went blank. No memories of his life flashed before him. No last thoughts pushed themselves through the barrier his mind had set up to give him one last conscious thought before he fell prey to the bullet firing at him.

And maybe that was because the bullet never reached him.

Levi was pushed to the ground by a pair of strong hands, strong, warm, familiar hands. He panted against the wooden floor of the hall before quickly scuttling away, rushing back into the safe, screaming crowd that was evacuating the attacked hall. Before he could, though, he wanted to get a look at his saviour, wanted to know why he had felt so safe in that split-second before his body hit the floor even though just moments ago he had a gun pointed to his face, barrel loaded and trigger pulled.

Eren stood with his back facing Levi, hand wrapped around the terrorist’s throat as he squeezed the life out of him. His body was rigid and his eyes were focused directly on the man in front of him. Levi stared, eyes lingering on Eren’s form before they were being ripped away by his own mind as he saw Eren snap the neck of the terrorist, then drop him down, bloody and dead, onto the floor.

The next few terrorists came in soon after that, but Levi ignored his teachers’ calls and stayed on the floor, watching Eren completely immobilise and take apart their attackers in a matter of minutes. Eren flew through the air, kicking one of them in the solar plexus before launching off their chest to roundhouse kick another one.

Ten minutes after the first attack, all the terrorists were on the ground, unmoving and clearly worse-off than the fifteen-year-old Eren Jaeger.

Eren was standing atop the still body of an incapacitated terrorist, heel pushed into his back, eyes boring holes in his head. Levi felt a pang of fear at the sight, but shook it away, telling himself that _this is Eren, this is Eren, he’s not a monster,_ this is Eren.

Chopper sounds filled the air soon after, catching both Eren and Levi’s attentions. All the students and staff had already been evacuated during the time it took for Eren to litter the floor of the school hall with corpses, and so all that occupied it now were Eren, Levi and the corpse debris around them.

Military men walked into the hall then, straight towards Eren, and none of them paid any heed to Levi. Eren turned towards them, and started to talk.

“I got this, get the students and teachers medical attention, I think one of the teachers were hit by the—” was as far as Eren got before he was hit on the neck by one of the soldiers. He slumped over another soldier’s arm, and they carried him off.

Levi raced forward, trying to figure out what was happening, but was stopped in his tracks by another soldier, this time with a silver pen-like device. They placed it in front of his face, pushed against his forehead hard, then said  –

“You never knew this boy. He did not exist in your life. You will not pursue us.”

– and right after he heard that, Levi fell asleep.

 

**REWRITE…**

* * *

 Eren woke up cold and confused. He was in a grey room, furnished not unlike a prisoner’s cell, and his ankles were shackled to the bed he was lying on. He rubbed a hand on his tired eyes and sat up, the chains clanking and clinking behind him as he did so.

The room was lit brightly by a sky-blue standing lamp, something that reminded Eren of his own table lamp at home. Something that –

Eren bolted up straight. He wasn’t at home. Where was he? His heartbeat pounded in his ears, and his palms grew sweaty as he quickly realised that he was someplace extremely foreign to him, and his young body soon surged with adrenaline. His head pulsed and he began to grip the bedsheets underneath him, pulling and stretching the cotton as he hyperventilated.

Soon after, two men burst into his room, and he screamed at them, loud and sharp and painful, screamed at them until they covered his mouth with their hands. Tears met their hands, hot, rushed tears, as Eren fought uselessly against their control.

“Seems like this isn’t a massive threat to him,” one of the men said, “He hasn’t been activated.”

Eren’s eyes widened. _Activated? What did that mean?_

“Must’ve been the imminent death of all his friends and teachers that set him off the last time,” the other replied, and the two of them pushed Eren down forcefully onto the bed, subduing him.

Eren was quiet now. He was still breathing heavily, but he was quiet. They slowly released him and stared at him until he squeezed his crying eyes shut, sobbing softly into his arm.

“You went through a lot, kid,” the first man said, “I don’t agree with everything they did to you, but there’s nowhere to go but here now. I’m sorry for everything that’ll happen to you. You don’t deserve what you’re getting.”

Then they both nodded solemnly at Eren and left him, closing the heavy door shut behind them.

Eren stayed lying down on the bed, tears rushing down his cheeks as he tried to remember what had happened in the hall. All he remembered was hearing an explosion, then seeing a tall, scary man aim a gun at Levi –

Levi. Where was Levi? Was Levi okay? Eren shook as he thought of all the horrible things that could’ve happened to Levi. He didn’t even know if Levi was still alive, let alone okay. Eren hated not knowing how Levi was doing more than anything else in the world.

However, exhaustion quickly caught up to him, and he turned to lie sideways on the bed.

Closing his eyes, Eren let himself cry to sleep, body shaking and trembling until his dreams caught up with him.

* * *

 Levi woke up in his bed the next day.

He walked to school, said hello to Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger on the way, and passed their house without looking for anyone else.

They didn’t notice anything amiss. How could they? Their child was gone, taken by their bosses, and now they were to live childless, lying to everyone in the neighbourhood who used to know of Eren to keep his identity under wraps.

Of course they still loved Eren, still longed to hug him before he went to bed, still longed to wake up half an hour earlier each morning to make his favourite breakfast of slow-cooked oatmeal with berry compote, but they couldn’t do anything about that anymore. They’d known all along that the moment the chip went off, they’d lose Eren.

Still, losing him blew a huge hole out of their lives. They could only imagine the pain and suffering Levi would’ve felt if his mind had not been wiped like the rest of the students.

As it was, Levi Ackerman was back to the boy he had been before he met Eren Jaeger. He was the quiet, stoic, perfect-grade-achieving student. Loved by teachers and feared by his classmates, he maintained his top spot before eventually leaving the school on a bondless scholarship to America.

He never went into the Jaeger household. He’d say “hello” to them out of habit, but he never went in.

And for years and years, the extra pretzels Carla Jaeger put out every single day steadily went stale.

* * *

 Eren cried every night until he was seventeen.

After a few days in the place, he soon began to notice other children and teenagers coming in, something about “ _rounding up the herd_ ”, and occupying rooms like his own. He was curious about it, but wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone but his trainers, making his heart harden and shrink with each passing day.

For his seventeenth birthday, they rewarded his good behaviour, and let him go on the Internet for a whole hour under an anonymous identity. He wasn’t allowed to comment or relay information – he could just look. Like an outsider, Eren stared at the world he once thought was home, and cried with relief when he found out that Levi was alive and doing well.

Two years had gone by since he had seen Levi, through a screen or in real life, and the mere knowledge that Levi was fine and okay was enough to keep Eren going for the next few gruelling months. He was being trained for something – something that involved a lot of fighting and infiltrating and killing, and he was afraid, but he was also becoming less and less afraid with each passing day. Every day, he practiced shooting people-like targets, practiced pressing himself against walls and drainpipes and ladders, practiced slitting the throat of an android without attracting its attention.

Over time, he became a well-oiled, well-trained killing machine.

After a few months, Eren was sent abroad for missions constantly, especially in war-torn areas, and was constantly being pushed to the frontlines ahead of his comrades because of his exceptional skill in incapacitation. Sure, the rest were super-soldiers just like him, but he had a knack, a particular look in his eye, that stunned his prey and put them at mercy of his cutting blades.

Each time he was activated, Eren remembered less and less of his previous life. With each awakening, his mind lost more and more of his personal voice, and slowly became a laundry list of commands.

Eren was slowly but surely losing himself, identifying more with his code name ‘TITAN’ than with his birth name. Green eyes glazed over and cheeks lay stoic, and his face became devoid of any expression humans were meant to show.

By the time he was twenty-two, Eren’s former self had been eroded completely, and he no longer cried at night, no longer longed for Levi’s touch or voice or smile. Neither did he miss his parents, nor his home – he only saw what was in front of him, what was presented to him. ‘ _Right or Wrong_ ’ stopped registering in his head. All he saw was ‘ _Commence_ ’ and ‘ _Terminate_ ’.

The army decided to put him on display to the rest of the world when he finished off the last of the militant groups, infiltrating and performing a massacre with his most-loved steel blades. He was heralded as a hero, but was feared as a monster on the battlefield.

When the lights came on him during the showcase, so did dozens and dozens of cameras, each snapping away at him with vigour. He looked at nobody as he scanned the crowd, eyes too dead to even pretend to be uninterested, and body too rigid to act lifelike.

The articles in the papers called him a ‘ _machine_ ’, referred to him as ‘ _TITAN_ ’, and painted him as the ‘ _hope for humanity_ ’.

He was shown the articles later, in his room, but of course, he’d already lost the capacity to care long ago.

Pushing his face into the pillow, Eren let himself drift to sleep, and dreamt of nothing but the black void his life had come to be.

* * *

“…unveil our latest advancement, a whole army of highly capable, highly efficient soldiers. And now, for the very first time, we are revealing the strongest, most feared soldier on our squad. Just for your eyes – _TITAN_!”

Levi turned to the television, pausing on his way to the kitchen. A man who looked to be younger than himself walked onto the stage. His green eyes were dull and robot-like, and his skin was tan, but it did not look natural at all.

A sense of familiarity shot through Levi as he stared at the screen, eyes fixated on the man who was looking at the crowd blindly, his face panning from left to right mechanically. His brown hair fell clumsily all over his face, being the only thing about him that made him look human, and his hands were fists at his sides.

Levi walked back to his living room and sat down, drawn by this super-soldier, and kept his eyes on him the entire programme, neglecting to hear the military’s boasts and praises for their new invention. When the programme ended, Levi immediately went online, refusing to acknowledge the ache in his stomach that called for dinner.

He scoured the internet for any mention of _TITAN_ , the man who seemed to be made of steel and not flesh. The only articles or posts that came up, however, were based off the television programme Levi had just finished watching. Levi narrowed his eyes. This was definitely kept as a military secret, but he was a little shocked that he could not find scientific research relating to the creation of these soldiers.

Just how did they do it?

And when had they done it?

Levi shook his head and closed his laptop, the light screen barely making a sound as he stood up walked back to the kitchen again, finally starting on his dinner.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that soldier through the night, and when he slept he dreamt of a younger version of the soldier, but woke up remembering nothing from his dream.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, Levi sighed into his clean sheets and got out of his bed, determined not to let all the contemplation about _TITAN_ get in the way of his productivity that day.

On the way to his office, he stopped by an Auntie Anne’s and got a pretzel.

* * *

 A few months later, Eren was dying.

With his ammo depleted and his lungs working over-time to push air into his system, he knew he stood no chance against the radicals he was against.

They had sent him alone on this mission, anticipating unchallenging and simple obstacles, and had not calculated the possible strength of the radicals in the empty spaces.

Without backup, Eren knew that if he did not get out, he would be shaking hands with Death soon.

“Call for backup,” Eren panted into his headset.

“Backup in thirty minutes.” a crackling sound replied.

Eren cursed, then ducked as a grenade soared above his head. He started running again, feet meeting ground meeting rocks, and swung into a hole in the ground.

“Negative. Ten minutes or less, or don’t come at all.” Eren said, all hope draining from his chest.

“Don’t take any collateral damage out with you,” was the reply, and Eren sighed.

“It’s been something to work with you.” Eren gritted out, these last moments of his life being the most human moments he could remember, “It wasn’t good, but it was something.”

A loud silence came from the other end before it came to life again.

“You still don’t deserve any of this.”

Eren laughed brokenly before ripping the headset out and smashing it to pieces with the heel of his foot.

With that life behind him, Eren jumped up from the hole, threading through the dilapidated buildings in an effort to pull the radicals away from the villagers nearby.

At the very least, he could save some lives.

A minute after he started running, he heard shouts, and his face turned into an ugly grimace as he felt bullets rip through his shin.

Eren kept running.

It was only after the bullets had hit his heart that he fell, his very last thought reaching out to the only friend he could remember, the only one he still held dear.

His lips formed a name, and for the first time in years, he let it slip through his mind, savouring the taste of it on his tongue one last time.

“ _Levi_.”

* * *

 

 

**DELETE.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! (: Any feedback is appreciated.  
> (this can also be found on tumblr here: http://tinybitterasian.tumblr.com/post/132079545520/levieren-insert-delete)


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